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Graphics

DX11 Tested Against DX9 With Dirt 2 Demo 201

Posted by Soulskill from the shadows-with-shadows dept.
MojoKid writes "The PC demo for Codemasters' upcoming DirectX 11 racing title, Dirt 2, has just hit the web and is available for download. Dirt 2 is a highly-anticipated racing sim that also happens to feature leading-edge graphic effects. In addition to a DirectX 9 code path, Dirt 2 also utilizes a number of DirectX 11 features, like hardware-tessellated dynamic water, an animated crowd and dynamic cloth effects, in addition to DirectCompute 11-accelerated high-definition ambient occlusion (HADO), full floating-point high dynamic range (HDR) lighting, and full-screen resolution post processing. Performance-wise, DX11 didn't take its toll as much as you'd expect this early on in its adoption cycle." Bit-tech also took a look at the graphical differences, arriving at this conclusion: "You'd need a seriously keen eye and brown paper envelope full of cash from one of the creators of Dirt 2 to notice any real difference between textures in the two versions of DirectX."
Image

Giant Spiders Invade Australian Outback Town 373

Posted by samzenpus from the welcome-to-my-sleepout-said-the-spider-to-the-bloke dept.
youth68 writes "Australia is known around the world for its large and deadly creepy crawlies, but even locals have been shocked by the size of the giant venomous spiders that have invaded an Outback town in Queensland. Scores of eastern tarantulas, which are known as 'bird-eating spiders' and can grow larger than the palm of a man's hand, have begun crawling out from gardens and venturing into public spaces in Bowen, a coastal town about 700 miles northwest of Brisbane."
Classic Games (Games)

The State of the Homebrew Games Scene In 2009 78

Posted by Soulskill from the more-the-merrier dept.
Craig writes "DCEmu has released an article detailing the current state of the homebrew scene on all game consoles, from the Sega Dreamcast to the Nintendo DS to the Nintendo Wii. It even covers unreleased consoles such as Pandora and GP2xWiz. The article explains what is needed to run emulators and games, and whether or not it's worth bothering for each console."
Sci-Fi

The History of the Ghostbusters Game 54

Posted by Soulskill from the i-ain't-'fraid-of-no-ghost dept.
Ars Technica takes a look at the development of the Ghostbusters game due out later this year. They go through the promising early demonstrations, the subsequent relegation to developmental limbo, and the project's eventual resurrection. Quoting: "Everyone involved with the game was extremely enthusiastic about its progress, as evidenced both by Sierra's heavy promotion of the title, as well as by how genuinely excited a number of the company's PR team were about it. Now, it isn't all that uncommon to talk with PR folk and be fed a line about how great whatever product they're promoting is, but even after several hours of drinking copious amounts of alcohol, the enthusiasm never waned; this definitely wasn't the case when we discussed some of the other titles that had been on display during the day's event. Even the members of the press corps, as we huddled together and compared notes, generally agreed that Ghostbusters had been the most impressive thing we'd gotten to see at the event. All in all, it looked like Sierra was going to deliver a game that finally gave the Ghostbusters franchise the respect it deserved, and none of us could wait to get our hands on it."
Image

Hippies Say WiFi Network Is Harming Their Chakras 432

Posted by samzenpus from the what's-with-all-the-negative-waves dept.
Anti-Globalism writes "A group of hippies is complaining that a recently installed WiFi mesh network in the UK village of Glastonbury is causing health problems. To combat the signals from the Wi-Fi hotspots, the hippies have placed orgone generators around the antennae." Although there have been many studies that show no correlation between WiFi and health issues the hippies say, "Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man."
Image

Man Dies Inside Trash Labyrinth 12

Posted by samzenpus from the smell-bad dept.
A man whose home was so full of trash that he had to build an network of tunnels to get around may have died after getting lost in the maze. Officials think Gordon Stewart, 74, died as a result of dehydration, after becoming unable to find his way out of the network of carrier bags, boxes, old furniture and other junk. Neighbors had become concerned that they had not seen Mr Stewart for several days and raised the alarm. Officials had no comment on the Bog of Eternal Stench or the whereabouts of the Goblin King.
Image

Woman Banned From Driving Until The Year 3000 5

Posted by samzenpus from the nobody-with-a-good-car-needs-to-be-justified dept.
84-year-old Luba Relic has been banned from driving for the next 1000 years. Her license had been suspended by the RTA for "medical reasons," a court heard. But she crashed into a Honda Civic outside a St Vincent De Paul shop in Oxford Rd, Brookvale in September. Luba is no stranger to the court system. She has been to court with her neighbors 78 times and was charged this time with negligent driving, driving without a license and failing to give particulars. Will someone please get Luba a copy of Burnout, I think she'd be a natural.
Games

Is the Gaming PC Dead? 417

Posted by Soulskill from the no-way-dude-check-out-my-$8000-alienware dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Rahul Sood, HP's CTO of gaming, argues that the days of a market that wants PCs running three $500 GPUs is history; he argues that it's really a tough or impossible sell. '... let's face it, high-end hardware has delivered diminishing returns in terms of value. This is why you don't see ridiculous offerings like Quad SLI and 2-kilowatt power supplies coming from our company.' But don't the ideas of customization and market pricing for components tend to undercut that? Is the gaming PC dead?"
Image

Zoe's Tale 109

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
stoolpigeon writes "John Scalzi, the author of Hugo Award-nominated science fiction novel Old Man's War, has built what started as a story serialized in his blog into a series of full novels and short stories. The latest installment in the OMW universe, Zoe's Tale, is quite a departure from the previous three books. It is the first of Scalzi's sci-fi novels written intentionally as young adult fiction. In a move that I am sure will continue to fuel Scalzi/Heinlein comparisons, Zoe is a precocious young woman thrust into a world of adventure and danger. In just three years Scalzi has built an impressive resume as an author of fiction, and Zoe's Tale will be no small part of what looks to be an influential and outstanding career." Keep reading for the rest of JR's review.
Encryption

NIST Announces Round 1 Candidates For SHA-3 Competition 125

Posted by Soulskill from the time-to-pick-them-apart dept.
jd writes "NIST has announced the round 1 candidates for the Cryptographic Hash Algorithm Challenge. Of the 64 who submitted entries, 51 were accepted. Of those, in mere days, one has been definitely broken, and three others are believed to have been. At this rate, it won't take the couple of years NIST was reckoning to whittle down the field to just one or two. (In comparison, the European Union version, NESSIE, received just one cryptographic hash function for its contest. One has to wonder if NIST and the crypto experts are so concerned about being overwhelmed with work for this current contest, why they all but ignored the European effort. A self-inflicted wound might hurt, but it's still self-inflicted.) Popular wisdom has it that no product will have any support for any of these algorithms for years — if ever. Of course, popular wisdom is ignoring all Open Source projects that support cryptography (including the Linux kernel) which could add support for any of these tomorrow. Does it really matter if the algorithm is found to be flawed later on, if most of these packages support algorithms known to be flawed today? Wouldn't it just be geekier to have passwords in Blue Midnight Wish or SANDstorm rather than boring old MD5, even if it makes no practical difference whatsoever?"
PlayStation (Games)

Mechanical AI Made In LittleBigPlanet 65

Posted by Soulskill from the somebody-make-a-quake-3-LBP-port dept.
Laurens writes "Despite slow sales of LittleBigPlanet in the USA, you might have heard of the calculator made within the game, but now that has been topped. I found a fully-functioning AI machine which plays Tic-Tac-Toe against the player. Considering that you can't actually program in LBP, this feat is impressive; it is a machine which has mechanical AND and OR ports made of pistons and proximity detectors, a physically moving Program Counter, and hundreds of wires. The level is called 'Tic Tac Toe' and is by author Cristel." Another player created a similarly amazing level that is a recreation of John Conway's Game of Life.
Education

Royal Society of Chemistry Slams UK Exam Standards 408

Posted by kdawson from the easy-button dept.
cheesethegreat writes "The Royal Society of Chemistry has sharply criticized the 'catastrophically' falling standards for UK school exams in the sciences. The RSC had 1,300 highly achieving students take an exam made up of questions taken from the last 50 years. The students averaged an appalling 15% on 'hard' numerical questions set in the 1960s, but managing much higher marks on the more recent 'soft' non-numerical questions. This latest report has garnered mainstream media attention. The RSC has also created a petition on the UK Prime Minister's official website, calling for urgent intervention to halt the slide, which has garnered over 3,000 signatures. The issue of declining exam standards has been an ongoing concern in the UK, with allegations that exam results have been manipulated by the government to increase pass rates and meet its own targets."

Comment Re:Hate speech banned eh? how much do you bet... (Score 2, Insightful) 452

by cabraverde (#18878211) Attached to: EU Moving to Ban Online Hate Speech
This is the first time I've wished that moderation went above +5. Spot on. We need to show that hateful thoughts and rhetoric, where wrong, can be defeated by exposure and open discussion. We can't legislate our way to the truth! Why do so many people think that we can?

So Fred Phelps thinks that God hates fags? Fuck him. Let him say what he wants. Let more enlightened Christians point out his doctrinal shortcomings, and let the general public ridicule him.

So David Irving wants to sue against claims that he's a Holocaust denier? Fuck him. Let the courts decide on the facts, not the motive. Truth wins. When we begin criminalising unpopular speech, however wrong, we begin to rally support for these obnoxious little fucktards even from people (like me) who oppose pretty much everything they say. And more importantly, we deny them a fundamental freedom that we assume for ourselves.

What's next? Publishing a paper with a flawed methodology is a criminal offence? Should Climate Change deniers (or proponents) be outlawed? Is this really the kind of society we want to live in?

Generally I'm proud to be European. Not today.

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